


The London Drabbles

by helva2260



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Canon Relationship (Anderson/Donovan), Gen, Possible Domestic Abuse, Serial Killers, The Kink Meme Made Me Do It!, Themes of Murder & Violence (mostly implied), unreliable narrators
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-12
Updated: 2012-08-12
Packaged: 2017-11-12 00:38:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/484688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helva2260/pseuds/helva2260
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every one of them's a serial killer. Well, nearly everyone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The London Drabbles

**Author's Note:**

> Betaed by the wonderful (and supremely patient) tau_sigma. Thank you!
> 
> Originally posted unbetaed and anon as a response to [this prompt](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/9100.html?thread=44107404#t44107404) on the kink meme: _"Everyone is a serial killer. (And thinks it's a unique profession.) Make it crack. Make it someone's paranoid POV. Make it angst with a plot and wonder how there are still any people left to kill. "_
> 
> Also, I hope you don’t mind, OP, but I’ve structured this as something close to a 5+1 fic (or in this case, a 9+1 *g*). Also, I probably also ought to apologise to Geoffrey Chaucer for borrowing his titling concept, and to Joe Straczynski, for borrowing a line from Babylon 5! I’ve also stretched the use of serial killer in the case of at least one character, though I do believe it fits the technicalities, if not the spirit of the definition…

  


  


**100 - The Pathologist’s Tale**

No-one looks twice at poor Molly. Quiet, shy, nervous Molly who can’t even speak to a crush without stammering. 

No-one sees Molly. Not in the morgue where she plies her trade, and not on the wards when she visits like a ghost in the night. 

No-one pays attention when Molly passes by. White coats are expected sights in a hospital, especially when paired with a clipboard and a thoughtful gaze. A carefully capped syringe in the pocket goes unnoticed.

And later there’s a new body for Molly to examine. It’s a sad fact of life that in hospitals, people die.

 

**100 - The Scientist’s Tale**

When he hears Sally telling someone that one day, it will be Sherlock’s handiwork they have to clean up, Anderson nearly laughs. If she only knew how many times she’d been standing over a corpse that he’d left for the police to find.

Under the nose of the Great Detective, he conceals his crimes with all the expert knowledge at his disposal.

Sometimes he covets Sally’s slender neck in the lamplight, feels her warm skin under him and watches the fall of her glorious hair, and wonders: what would they think if it were _your_ body in front of them?

 

**100 - The Other Woman’s Tale**

The first one was accidental. 

He looked like Anderson. Anderson, who had shrugged on his shirt, zipped up his trousers, and returned to his wife.

Angry, frustrated, and unable to bear the silent flat for a second longer, Sally had taken a walk. She’d only noticed the mugger when he attacked. Instinct drove her to disarm him, and training ensured that she won control of the knife. He looked like Anderson. 

Sometimes, after Anderson leaves her again, Sally takes a walk. 

There are fewer muggers and rapists thanks to Anderson (though it’s funny how many of them look like him).

 

**221b - The Man of Law’s Tale**

Lestrade is aware that what he’s doing is wrong. By day, he pursues criminals and prosecutes them to the full extent of the law; by night he hunts them down like animals. He can’t quite remember when it all started. When did he lose faith in the criminal justice system?

Was it the Finsbury Park Strangler? After three deaths, they knew the culprit, but the CPS said they didn’t have enough evidence to prosecute: he took five more lives before they had the necessary proof to charge him.

Or maybe those times that one court-appointed solicitor or another had managed to wangle a suspect’s freedom on the basis of procedural mistakes? 

Well, whatever it was that broke him, he can’t find it in him to regret it. 

He’s subtle. Careful to make sure he keeps his crimes looking dull so as to not draw Sherlock’s eagle-eyed attention. He works his way through the cold cases looking for patterns; keeps his ear open in the break rooms and briefings for more dots on the mental map he keeps of London. And then when he’s certain of his target, everything inside him goes still. Focused. Hungry. 

He makes a trip to the rented lock-up garage in Morden to collect his gear, and then he goes hunting. Nemesis is coming for the law breakers.

 

**221b - The Widow’s Tale**

Mrs Hudson has outlived five husbands. 

Brendan died in a car accident in the summer of 1954. Everyone was so kind to young Mrs Douglas, stood pale and unflinching at the open mouth of her husband’s grave.

James wanted a son to carry on the family name. He was very emphatic about it. Mrs Eden was not so keen. It was such a pity that he fell down the stairs before they could come to an agreement.

A good man with a gambling problem, Mrs Ashburn discovered her husband Robin dying of a stab wound in the street. Killed, no doubt, by someone to whom he owed money.

Unfortunate as ever, Mrs Torridge nursed her next, and elderly, husband through a long illness. Her dear Lloyd became quite delusional by the end, suspecting anyone and everyone of poisoning him. Even his loving wife.

When she’d married Humphrey, they’d decided to run a guesthouse in the United States. No lodger stayed for long, some disappearing virtually overnight. It was becoming suspicious, and Mrs Hudson decided she’d rather retire to England and a quieter life. Then the first bodies were found in the garden of their former guesthouse and her husband started to look at her oddly. Fearing for her safety, she went in search of a detective to act on her behalf…

 

**221b - The Soldier’s Tale**

John still has nightmares about Afghanistan every once in a long while, but he never dreams of the men he’s killed since returning home.

It’s not precisely a misuse of his training, John thinks. He was trained to assess a situation in seconds and take action. He was trained to ensure whenever possible, that the civilians went home safe at the end of the day, and the bad guys didn’t. 

Yes, he is in illegal possession of an unlicensed gun. Yes, he’s killed people with it. Yes, it’s not his job anymore to do so. But at the end of the day, somebody’s got to make sure that Sherlock survives. The world is better for it. 

He keeps within the rules he learned in the Army; he’s taken the time to learn the restrictions under which the Met’s armed response units operate - and he’s satisfied that his kills would be considered justified under those rules and regulations. Though that’s not exactly a valid argument he could make in a court of law, were his gun ever to be discovered and the firing patterns on the bullets matched to the various open casefiles.

He’s well aware that he is weaving through a minefield of self-justification…but he’s still not going to lose sleep over the criminals he’s killed.

He’s got Sherlock Holmes’ back.

 

**100 - The Physician’s Tale**

Being a doctor is an exercise in power and knowledge. And Sarah: kind Sarah, sweet Sarah - clever Sarah - is well aware of the power she wields. 

She keeps her hobbies away from work - there are too many annoying regulations nowadays to risk it - but people will always trust doctors. And people will always trust the charitable volunteers who claim to care about the minutiae of their humdrum suffering. 

It was certainly a risk to employ an ex-army, present-acquaintance-of-a-private-detective doctor in the practice, even as a locum… But he’s rather cute, and besides, Sarah’s always been something of an adrenaline junkie.

 

**100 - The Civil Servant’s Tale**

In the tip of his umbrella is a concealed spike coated in subtle poison. In its body, a slender sword. For self-defence of course, nothing more. But Mycroft’s job, his calling, his very life is all given to defend London and the wider realm.

He understands of course that he will be remembered not as a reformer, not as a prophet, not as a hero, but merely as… a minor government official. That is all he could possibly wish for. And so he cleanses London, one undesirable at a time. 

It’s a distasteful job, but someone has to do it.

 

**100 - The Personal Assistant’s Tale**

Big Brother is not watching her. She is trusted.

By day, she is Hathor seducing the unwary, keeping diplomats off-balance and holding ambassadors at bay with a raised eyebrow and Blackberry in hand. She plays with the image of perfection to ensnare them.

By night, she is Sekhmet, glorying in the feel and taste of blood, and the scent of death. She knows all of the CCTV blackspots by heart; knows how to wend her way through the back streets and the hiding places. 

Big Brother does not even know he should be watching her - and couldn’t if he tried. 

 

**221b - The Detective’s Tale**

Sherlock occasionally wishes he were normal. He watches other people moving through a life ruled by sentiment, and wonders what it’s like. What would it be like to wake up one day with that something that he’s missing. Would it be like a tone-deaf person suddenly comprehending music? Sherlock cannot imagine lacking awareness of the subtle shifts in pitch and the mathematical perfection of chords and octaves. 

He wonders sometimes if Donovan is right about him. If one day he will be so utterly bored that he’ll turn as Moriarty did, and create his entertainment from suffering and death. 

He doesn’t believe so. Being a sociopath is not a synonym for evil, after all. He’s not without rules. It’s just that they are rules compiled over a lifetime of observation and theorisation, rather than the instinctive knowledge of right and wrong that most people take for granted.

Sherlock knows that few people, if any, trust him completely. Even Lestrade looks at him with a trace of fear on occasion. But he thinks that John is changing that for the better. Changing him. Between John’s instincts for right, and Sherlock’s own rules, he can’t go wrong. With the warmth of John’s presence in his life, Sherlock is beginning to see other people as more than just shadow puppets on a hollow backdrop.

  



End file.
